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Cisco Duo vs UserLock comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Duo
Ranking in Authentication Systems
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
UserLock
Ranking in Authentication Systems
25th
Ranking in Access Management
24th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 5.3%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.1%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Duo5.3%
UserLock1.1%
Other93.6%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Contractor at Insight global
Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals
The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.
Bill H. - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology at City Of Keizer
Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory
The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cisco Duo scales with the growing needs of our organization by making it easy to acquire more licensing, especially with an enterprise agreement, which allows built-in growth and minimizes worries about licensing as we expand."
"The feature of Cisco Duo that I appreciate most is the push notifications. They are great."
"The feature I like the most about Cisco Duo is that it allows us to authenticate users before they can connect to our network from outside of our company."
"What I appreciate the most is that you can push a notification with your phone and log in to your computer."
"I like the set time that users can log into devices during the day and how many times they can do so. I also like the ability to restrict the regions from which the user can get in. Users outside of our country or even the town cannot log in."
"Cisco is the perfect product for our current size, and I don't think we'll have problems with scalability as we grow."
"As a former employee, I think it's top-notch when it comes to protecting internal and external threats and preventing unauthorized access to the network."
"Cisco Duo helps minimize the risk of attack vectors and prevents unauthorized access to our data since it's tied with multi-factor authentication, which helps block threats."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
 

Cons

"Duo Security should better organize its tile feature to organize applications better."
"We found it difficult to integrate it into our broader product family of Microsoft tools and other applications used across our organization."
"For the back-end, there could be a few more security features applied."
"We had some trouble with the password reset function."
"Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system."
"I'm unsure how to disable the ping notification sound on my phone when using Cisco Duo. I don't know how to silence it."
"There is always room for improvement."
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it."
"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."
"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the licensing model is excellent as it offers flexibility to our customers, allowing them to adopt a crawl, walk, or run approach."
"Price-wise, the solution has been very, very reasonable...Licensing is the last thing I think about Duo Security because it's so easy, and I had no problems with it."
"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"It's a bit confusing because we're on a three-year plan with a certain number of licenses, and we've gone over that number. They told us that when we renew, they will add all these licenses. We've expanded quickly, so everyone's kind of scared because no one knows what the bill is with the long pricing cycle."
"It is affordable for what's coming to the table with it, but in this day and age, the cost is looked at under a microscope, and companies need to very finely define what is needed versus what is critical. In some cases, it might not be cost-effective for a company to have it. In a lot of other cases, it is the cost of doing business."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"I haven't seen any information on the pricing in four years, so I can't comment on that."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
Government
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise40
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that one of the most powerful features is the licensing model and the price. According to the pricing, it is really fantastic to get th...
What needs improvement with Duo Security?
One downside of Cisco Duo is the expense, as there are clients that can afford only the basic package, which does not include Geo-fencing, leaving them unable to pay for the more expensive level, w...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Duo Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. UserLock and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.